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RHS Students searched after Facebook threat

Police and sheriff’s deputies rushed to Ruidoso High School early Tuesday after school officials told them they had seen Facebook postings in which two RHS students agreed they should “shoot up a school.”

RHS Students searched after Facebook threat

Police and sheriff’s deputies rushed to Ruidoso High School early Tuesday after school officials told them they had seen Facebook postings in which two RHS students agreed they should “shoot up a school.”

The two boys were briefly detained and questioned in the principal’s office. The bus that brought one of them to school was also searched. No guns were found. The two insisted they had been “just joking around,” according to Ruidoso Police Det. Ray Merritt.

Once officers and school administrators were satisfied there was no immediate threat, their parents were called and they were sent home.

“They said they didn’t realize it was such a big deal,” Merritt said. “They said they had no intention of doing anything bad at the school.”

Classes went ahead Tuesday as usual, but all students were given a short letter to their parents from school Supt. George Bickert with a brief summary of what had happened.

The pair remained away from school Wednesday and it appeared they would stay away while authorities considered how to deal with them.

“There is a criminal investigation going on,” said Merritt, who directed the search and questioning at the school. “We will forward a report to the DA’s office to determine whether charges will be filed.”

Bickert was monitoring the situation from Baltimore, where he was speaking at a national conference of school administrators.

“We will impose the most serious discipline that we can under school policy,” he said in a phone interview. “This is unacceptable.”

He expressed frustration that some students apparently told their parents that weapons had reached the high school, and the parents spread the rumor on social media. “There were no firearms found at all,” he said.

Merritt said the situation began when high school administrators were informed of a Facebook exchange between the two students.

“We should shoot up a school,” wrote one, according to Merritt.

“Expletive, yeah,” answered the other.

When the call came in from the school, police responded immediately. Merritt said that in addition to himself, there were three others from the Ruidoso Police, and two Lincoln County sheriff’s deputies. RPD School Resource Officer James Urban was already on the scene when the others arrived.

Merritt said Principal Cody Patterson had had the ominous Facebook conversation forwarded to his cell phone. When he showed it to officers, they agreed it should be interpreted as a direct threat, even though the high school wasn’t explicitly named as a target.

One of the two students was on the football field, where the Warrior band was having an early practice. Police found him and took him to Patterson’s office.

The other student was on Bus #14, which at that moment was on its way to drop off students at Ruidoso Middle School.

Merritt said he asked RHS Principal Cody Patterson to contact the driver immediately and tell him to come directly to the high school instead.

When the bus pulled in, officers boarded it in the parking lot, identified the student, and ordered him to remain in his seat while the approximately 40 other RHS and Middle School students got off. The student suspect was then taken to Patterson’s office.

Merritt said the other bus passengers were separated into boys and girls groups and quickly searched to make sure the suspected student hadn’t passed anything to a classmate when he saw police waiting for him. One of the sheriff’s deputies was a woman and handled the searches of the girls, Merritt said.

Merritt said the searches and detentions of the two students were handled in as “low key” a manner as possible. When no gun was found, police and school administrators agreed it was safe to go ahead with a normal school day.

Exactly how state law and school policy might apply to the Facebook exchange between the two students was not immediately clear.

Merritt said bomb threats are addressed in detail by criminal statutes, but a general threat to “shoot up a school” without actually naming a specific one might not support a criminal charge. He said it would be up to the district attorney’s office, which might decide next week.

As for school discipline in a case where no actual weapon is present, the Ruidoso Municipal School District policy on “weapons in school” says among other things that “no student shall use or threaten to use a weapon or simulated weapon to disrupt any activity of the District.”

It adds later that violations of the policy by means “other than carrying or possessing a firearm shall be subject to disciplinary action, including but not limited to expulsion.”

How important it is in this case to establish that these students intended their conduct to disrupt school activities was among questions Bickert will need to consider when he returns home on Friday.